Sorting ‘real’ from ‘fake’

Few would accuse Rep. Louie “Terror Baby” Gohmert of regularly dispensing trenchant social commentary, but in just 10 words this week he summed up the state of journalism in the age of the Internet.

“The story is not there,” he said. “The story is over there.”

The Tyler Republican said this while trying to block a photojournalist from snapping pictures of protesters being removed from the confirmation hearings of attorney general nominee Jeff Sessions, according to The Dallas Morning News. He reportedly said it in response to the photographer’s question, “Are you seriously blocking me from making these pictures of these protesters?”

Gohmert is not alone these days among non-journalists in defining newsworthiness to journalists. These days, it’s the norm. And unfortunately, journalists are to blame — at least, the type who behave as if the mere existence of something justifies its publication.

This was BuzzFeed’s defense of its decision this week to publish a dossier of serious but unsubstantiated accusations against President-elect Donald Trump gathered by a former British intelligence operative.

“Now BuzzFeed News is publishing the full document so that Americans can make up their own minds about allegations about the president-elect that have circulated at the highest levels of government,” the story stated.

In other words, readers should decide what’s real and what’s fake. And should readers perceive fake news as real, that’s not the fault of the news media.

Unfortunately, this rationale thumbs its nose at the First Amendment, which protects “the publication of truthful information of public concern,” as the Supreme Court phrased it in 2001. It also undermines the basic enterprise of journalism. By denying the role of journalists as gatekeepers of truth, it gives a green light to the Gohmerts of the world.

After all, if anyone can “make up their own minds” about what constitutes a legitimate story, what’s to stop a congressman from doing so?

Or a president?

“You are fake news,” Trump told Jim Acosta of CNN this week, as he refused to allow the journalist to ask a question at a news conference.

Trump was angry that CNN had reported the dossier story. The nuance: CNN had not published the actual document, but rather the fact that intelligence officials had given Trump a two-page memo summarizing the allegations against him.

This distinction did not matter. To the president-elect, any story that reflects poorly upon him is a product of terrible news judgment.

This attitude is also discernible in Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who is on a quest this session to pass a law that would require transgender men to use women’s restrooms and transgender women to use men’s restrooms.

“The only people who oppose this bill in your poll or my poll are Anglo liberals, and many of them work in the media,” he said this week in a conversation with Texas Tribune CEO Evan Smith.

Any criticism of Patrick’s bill, then, is the product of poor news judgment, the sort that churns out “fake news.”

Mayor Ivy Taylor has also proven susceptible to this thinking. I wrote in November about a visit she made to the San Antonio Express-News to express her displeasure at our coverage of her Council on Police-Community Relations.

“Yes, we need reporters, columnists and editors to help hold leaders accountable,” she told us, “but that has to be within the context of advancing the community, not merely to erode confidence in leaders and processes and in the potential to resolve difficult and emotional issues.”

In response, I wrote, “I could not disagree more. Sometimes, ‘leaders and processes’ must be questioned, regardless of the context.”

“Your just an idiot,” a reader emailed after the column ran.

“You misspelled ‘you’re,’” I responded.

“Thanks!” the reader wrote back.

I was refreshed. Perhaps, in proper spelling, we had found common ground.

Then, 20 minutes later, another email arrived: “I never said you could not spell or I could,” the reader clarified. “It is just the fact that what you write is stupid.”